Newcastle woman buys farm in Arkengarthdale in Yorkshire Dales

Liz Sutcliffe, who is originally from Newcastle, is heading the project after she spent all she had to buy off-grid Heggs House and its 136 acres in Arkengarthdale almost four-years-ago.

Liz said that the farming community’s initial thought when the land went up for sale was ‘who would want that?’ due to the land’s lack of suitability for profitable farming.

However, Liz had different ideas for Heggs and she has joined with two neighbouring landowners to create an important haven for wildlife whilst simultaneously bolstering flood protections for an area badly hit by flash floods in July 2019.

One of the project's most ambitious aims is to create 74 acres (30 hectares) of native broadleaved woodland by planting 25,000 trees on Heggs Farm and neighbouring Castle Farm this winter.

Fencing and a forestry track are currently being installed to allow for the planting on the brant fellside beneath Fremington Edge.

Also taking place at Heggs Farm are youth engagement activities, seasonal volunteer days, natural flood management works, eco-systems research and hay meadow restoration.

1 Liz Sutcliffe with Heggs Farm in the background (Image: YDNPA)

Liz explained: “We have the good fortune to be managing this land now, three separate landowners all with a similar intention to increase biodiversity; restore natural processes where they might have been lost; and reintroduce a balance in eco systems.

“One of the best ways to do that is work with partners who are experts in their various fields and have the funding to help make things happen on the ground.

“Our big project is planting 30 hectares of new broadleaved woodland.

“We’re trying to do this as naturally as possible.

“Hopefully in the next 20 or 30 years we will have a very natural, open woodland develop with scrub around the edges and the very top – and that will join existing woodland corridors which exist on either side of our planting site.

“As a cluster we envisage restoring the remainder of the site to the wood pasture.”

Currently more than three kilometres of fencing is being installed in the area to minimise the pressure of rabbits on the woodland.

And several hundred compostable tree guards will also be trialled to see whether they can work as well as plastic guards.

Liz said that she came up with the re-naturing idea after she soon realised that her initial plan to create a market garden at Heggs Farm was unrealistic as the land had already ‘been allowed to wild of its own accord’.

She explained: “It’s isolated, the terrain’s difficult, there’s a lot of bracken.

“In fact, the only place that would be suitable (for farming) is the meadow – and that should be a meadow.

“It needs to be continued to be grazed, so that the wildflowers can then flourish in spring.

“This is marginal land and I am all for ‘right tree, right place’ - not ‘tree anywhere’.

“Heggs is not the place to farm herds of cattle or flocks of sheep in any great number that would sustain you as a farming business.

“This is the perfect place to be a nature conservation site, for want of a better description.”

A woodland will be planted on this fellside this winter (Image: YDNPA)

Liz said that community involvement and listening to the expertise and opinions of local people and farmers is an important element the project.

She says: “Otherwise it’s just us on our own doing stuff in isolation and it’s not really going to have that butterfly effect that we are hoping it will have eventually.

“I’ve had some of the most enriching conversations and exchanges with people who have lived here for generations and just have a deep love for where they live.

“And also with people who have a different kind of love because of being drawn here.

“There’s a lot of creative people.

“A lot of artists, a lot of musicians and a lot of people who are drawn here by the love of nature.”

And Liz has her sights firmly set on the future of the land as a thriving habitat for native wildlife and woodland, saying that she sees herself as a ‘caretaker’ rather than a landowner.

She said: “The name ‘landowner’ sort of segregates you.

“That’s not doing anything.

“So I like the word caretaker, and also it reminds me that it’s a period of time where Heggs is under my care and I’ve got to think beyond that about what I can leave, especially now for my daughter.

“How can I leave it in a more flourishing state for her?

“How can I contribute more value, during my lifetime?

“I have put absolutely everything I had into purchasing Heggs and the land.

“Am I going to be able to make a livelihood around here?

"What is the business side going to look like?

“That is what I am trying to figure out.”

The project is being supported by the Government-funded Grow Back Greener scehe and the Tees-Swale: naturally connected programme, which is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Other organisations backing the project are Richmondshire District Council, Yorkshire Water and the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust.